THE BILLIONIARE DON WANTS ME DEAD

CHAPTER 6

Lyra’s POV

Adrick is much more than a spoiled brat, that much I can be sure of. I walk around the mansions and the paintings I see aren’t just paintings. The paintings I see are paintings I’ve seen before. Paintings shown on the news because they were stolen from the museum.

Not just any rich brat can get those. I wonder what Adrick’s job is but I come back with nothing because the only clue I have is him in his suit, his black hair which is always sleek, him always smelling like some kind of dead thing was trailing behind him. Not the rotten dead, his own specific feeling of death that was still somehow cool.

I get back to the quarters and see Adora pacing the room. We’ve been talking, so I asked her, “What’s wrong?”

“He took Clara,” she says. “He called for Clara.”

“What? When?”

“A few moments ago. And Martha was looking for you.”

She’ll be back, but why did he decide to call Clara in today? He didn’t leave for work but he also didn’t leave his room.

Adora is more fond of Clara, so is Clara. They have become two peas in a pod, and I look into Adora’s face and see the distress. I look into Adora’s face and see what I’ve felt before, what I know too well, because I have a younger sister I’m scared for too.

I reach for Adora's hand and look into her eye, then I say, “It’s alright. She’s going to be fine.”

“Is she?” Adora asks. “When he called you in the other day… what happened in there?”

Well… he told me to strip, but I don’t tell her that. I tell her, “nothing.” She frowns then I say, “Nothing actually happened. He told me to leave when I got there, but nothing happened.” And I hope nothing happens to Clara. I hope he gets angry again and tells her to get out.

“Okay?” I ask her because she isn’t responding.

“Okay,” she says. Then I hug her, and pat her hair.

“Martha says we should go digging again,” she says.

“When?” I ask.

“When she came looking for you, she said I should tell you we need to dig again.”

Why did we even need to dig?

Then she says, “We have new sets of plants. I was waiting for you so we could leave.”

I’m still holding her hand. “Let’s go.”

We walk out of our quarters and I walk us to the shed. I walk in, grab two shovels, looking at the third, still wondering what Adrick could possibly want with Clara. I go out of the shed and say, “Here you go,” as I give Adora her shovel.

She wraps her hand around it and we’re on our way to the back of the mansion which already had about twelve plants. There were four more in their little sacks, but it took the three of us two to three hours to do one each. Now Adora and I had four—two each because we weren’t with our third.

“Why do we even have to stay here?” Adora asks. And my eyes find the reason we need to stay here, the guards. They stayed at the corner of each of the mansion, on the outside, but not that many inside. They were on different spots on the grass field, both the back and front.

The back of the mansion had a fence and you can just tell that over that fence had nothing behind. I could guess an ocean or forest, the only thing I can be sure of was that it was no man’s land. I could guess the mansion itself is on no man’s land. Because that’s how Adrick looked to me, like he was stealing from foreign land.

My shovel goes into the sand, pushing in, then pushing out, trying to get some sand out. Adora does the same, she’s digging, one shove in from her, then one from me, and it makes these rhythmic sounds on the ground. Till we’re panting with the sounds and getting slower because digging was one hell of a task.

We were at it for a while, I believe one hour before we finished the first two holes. I can guess an hour because I know exactly where the sun was when we started and now, it's shifted a bit. And my body just feels it too. I've been trained to know what the time was or how much time I spent when I was in my training days.

I lift off the plant’s sack, and without tearing it open I just put it in the hole.

“Shouldn’t we… ?” Adora asks.

“No one’s looking.” I say. Which was true. All the guards stood straight, in attention, with their heads straight forward, not on us. And even though they were alert on us, they weren’t really watching us. And they won’t jump at Martha or Adrick saying, “Lyra didn’t tear open the sack.”

Adora lifts her own plant and gets it in. Then we cover it back up and start with our next holes. One shove in from her, then another shove in from me, our hands hurt but we’d rather finish fast and find Martha, find Clara. Adora shoves her shovel in more, digging harder, and deeper, pouring out the sand, then wiping her sweat from her forehead.

I was practically doing the same too, pushing my shovel in then wiping my sweat. And with another hour and a half, we decided we were done again. It doesn’t need to be as deep as normal because as deep as normal is just plain torture.

We got our plants into their holes and covered them back up with the sand and patted the sand.

We are both gasping and I ask for her shovel to return it. She gives it to me and I walk to the shed, put it in place and get back to her.

“She’s not out yet,” Adora says.

So I guess he’s not angry and throwing her out.

I walk forward with her behind me and we go to the front of the mansion. Martha is standing there then her eyes are on me as she asks, “Where were you earlier today?”

“Cleaning the hallways,” I say, then I ask. “Where is Clara?”

I’m in front of her and she’s frowning. People have smile lines and she naturally has frown lines.

“How could you possibly have cleaned that upset Mr. Adrick?”

“Mr. Adrick is a w***e who doesn’t know what he wants.”

And before I get the chance to say anymore her hand reaches my cheek, hot and harsh.

I might have said too much.

“Stupid girl,” she says. “That mouth of yours, will get you killed.”

I’m breathing in and out, then she says, “Go to your quarters. The both of you.”

Adora holds my hand, I’m sure she can sense me wanting to open my mouth again.

“Let’s go,” she says. Then she pulls me downwards and we’re heading to our quarters.

Martha was really such a puppet, and Adrick—a condescending bastard.

Nothing better happens to Clara.

I walk to my quarters with Adora and my hand on my cheek. I can’t wait to find my way out of here.